[15:22] Woman had to sell her house after she was harassed to pay son’s cocaine debt, court hears
A woman had to sell her house and move to another area, after a man harassed her and demanded that she pay her son’s cocaine debt, a court has heard. Graham Potts was jailed for four and a half years on his 39th birthday for demanding money with menace, threatening to damage property and harassment. He had pleaded guilty. Dublin Circuit Criminal court heard that Potts, with an address at Fitzgerald Park, York Road in Dun Laoghaire, also had a drug debt at the time, and had his legs and arm broken for his non-payment. Garda Stephen Noonan told the court that the woman and her husband were living in an area of South Dublin, when men began calling to their door in April 2022. The men first looked for the couple’s adult son, but when told he was at work, a man informed his mother that he owed €3,000. Her son later told her that he knew nothing about it, but the group arrived again a few days later and said that the amount had gone up to €6,000. The next message given to the woman by a man at her door a few days later was to tell her son “to contact Graham”. A couple of days later, the accused himself arrived at her front door and said that €6,000 had to be paid. Other people remained in the driveway, and one of them shouted to her that she needed to get her son to sort this, that she needed to take it seriously. In all, Potts called to the house four or five times. She asked him what the debt was for and he said it was for cocaine. On one occasion, he said: “You are a lovely lady and I wouldn’t like anything bad to happen to you, your cars or your house.” The woman contacted gardaí after about two weeks of the demands, and handed over a photograph that her husband had taken of Potts at their home. The woman then began to receive phone calls, having given Potts her number. She didn’t answer any of the calls and Potts again arrived at her door, begging her to come out. The calls stopped at the end of April, but in May Potts called to where her son worked as a chef. He threatened to call to the woman’s house if her son didn’t come out of the kitchen. He met the woman on his way back to his car, and told her that the debt was now €7,000.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/woman-had-to-sell-her-house-after-she-was-harassed-to-pay-sons-cocaine-debt-court-hears/a197083800.html
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